Sweet Dreams

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Feedback

Feedback from the latest job interview...

"His estimated verbal critical reasoning ability is well above average when compared to a Banking, Finance and Professional Services 2006 comparison group. His result is better than 99% of the people in this group. This suggests that he will display an exceptional level of ability in understand and evaluating written reports and documents.

He needed to display a more proactive approach and have a more active contribution to the team discussions".

i.e. I'm a geek. TY.

Well, I come across as a quiet, calm, objective, laid-back kind of a person. Works for me. But this is the third job interview in five months where it has not worked for me.

Any beautiful submissivettes reading this and willing to boost the economy in these troubled times by teaching me Domineering and getting me and my superlative talents back into productive work?

Nope? Maybe I should buy a fluffy puppy

and shout at it and kick it around the floor for a week or two.

A real puppy would be better for the yelps of pain and stuff.

Hmmm. Any of you Trappist monasteries out there needing a Project Manager?

Apocalypse Then

...and in the death
as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
the shutters lifted an inch in temperance building
high on poacher's hill
and red mutant eyes gazed down on hunger city
no more big wheels
fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
and ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of love-me avenue
ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver fox
now leg-warmers
family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald
any day now
the Year of the Diamond Dogs...

This ain't rock'n' roll! This is genocide!

Bowie, Diamond Dogs, 1974.

And because I'm in the mood, the eerily beautiful "Sweet Thing"



I was working in the City for a stockbroker on Black Monday in 1987, responsible for developing and managing the trading floor software.

Walking onto the floor that morning and seeing red screens everywhere, I thought I must have made some terrible coding error, and began frantically wondering what I could have got wrong. It was a temporary relief to find out that the red was reality. That was my first taste of The Fear.

One of our traders was out in Ireland on a picnic and decided to show off to the girls by spending the day on his new-fangled mobile telephoonical device. "Buy! Hundred thousand ICI! Buy!"

It has always impressed me that all day not one of the traders he was buying from let on about the markets being in free-fall.

He lost more than £50m.

Sceptical Job Agents

Sceptical job agents.

Don'tcha just hate 'em?







From a job ad I was sent today...

"Candidates will have the opportunity to work in Brussels and enjoy the benefits of the stable Belgium economy and strong Euro."

Well, I suppose rubble is stable and strong, so maybe I'll go for it.

Sceptical candidates, don'tcha just hate 'em?

Mark to Market

Mr Paulson's bail-out bill includes the suspension of mark-to-market rules.

Which seems to mean that instead of having to say "may assets are worth what I can sell them for today" I can say "my assets are worth what I want them to be worth" or "my assets are worth what they were worth before they became worthless" or "my assets are worth what I think they might be worth one day, once they have ceased to be worthless".

Which is a bit of a boo if my assets really do have a useful market value: dodgy institutions can now pretend to be as sound as I am and the risks of lending to anyone therefore increase, which cannot help in a liquidity crisis.

I give up. I don't understand anything any more.

I will pour myself a very large whisky, settle down in my club chair, and laugh heartily as the Laws of Gresham, Unintended Consequences*, Murphy and so on inexorably work out their effects.

I recall that the Bank of England once prevented a run by having its liveried footmen deliver boxes of gold at the front door - under the eyes of the panicking depositors - then scamper round the back and deliver the same boxes again. Maybe a similar kind of swindle will work after all.

*
1) The Irish Government guarantees Irish bank deposits;
2) lots of people send their money to Ireland;
3) to the extent that the Irish Government cannot possibly afford to guarantee the deposits.

Immense Penis

Picture courtesy of Nurse Myra.








Aliens from Outer Space: Oh hh Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Blogista: Yap.

Aliens from Outer Space: What, you actually replied to our penis extension "spam" messages?

Blogista: Yappity yap. Every single one.

Aliens from Outer Space: What about the administrative messages from your bank or banks? Th' parttime job offers, th' work-at-home big opportunities?

Blogista: Never cut any ice, sir.

Aliens from Outer Space: So you have the biggest penis in the universe and we still don't know your bank account number?

Blogista: That's pretty well the way it is.

Chief Alien from Outer Space: Put this call on hold. Get me the Head of Spam, now.

Beautiful Titsy PA to the Chief Alien from Outer Space: Oohhhhhhhhh.

Project Manager (reporting up to Board level): Looks like he's having your PA through some kind of nth-dimensional wormhole. I'll put that down as a red "traffic light" on th' Risk Log.

Beautiful Titsy PA to the Chief Alien from Outer Space: Oh god I'm coming again.

Chief Alien from Outer Space: Add it to the Issue Log also.

Boy Beautiful

Nice pecs. I like the purple shading on the other musculature.

Nice bit of driftwood. It was just there on the beach and you decided to pick up on it and pose with it. Just because you are so spontaneous with flotsam.

Nice haircut. The sideburns dark and trimmed, the rest roughly ruffled and - well, we can all relate to peroxide and a dab of KY.

Pity about the penis.

Evvy day you are sent messages from well-wishing persons who only want to make your manhood bigger, or at least less small. Reply to them. You are thinking "spam"; I am thinking, you. And your future... get one, honeybuns.